Genealogy group to honor Scotts Civil War veterans with ceremony Saturday

SCOTTS, MI – Of the six Kalamazoo County Grand Army of the Republic posts that used to exist during and after the American Civil War, four have monuments.

View full sizeFrom left, Bob Ramsdell, Jo Ramsdell, Mike Culp, Phyllis Simmons and Jolene White pose for a photo in Simmons' home. The five make up the research team that compiled the book to be sold at Saturday's ceremony honoring the Scotts Civil War Post.Alex Mitchell | MLive.com

After a ceremony to unveil a plaque at the former Walter Orr Post 312 in Scotts scheduled for Saturday, July 20, only the former Galesburg post will remain unrecognized.

A ceremony dedicated to the post and men who served for it will be held at 1 p.m., at the Scotts Community Center, 8450 South 36th Street.

The Grand Army of the Republic was a fraternal organization consisting of veterans of the Civil War that formed after the war ended. They were responsible for maintaining peace after the war had ended in the event of an uprising. The group disbanded in the 1950s when its last member died.

The idea to honor these men came about when Phyllis Simmons, the former Climax Township Supervisor, was contacted last September by Mike Culp and Gary Twain, members of the Sons of the Union, a Civil War legacy group that formed after the GAR dissolved, comprising of descendants of the war.

“Gary and I had begun talking about doing something for these soldiers for, oh, seven, eight years,” said Culp, who is also director of the 13th Michigan Memorial Association. “When we were in Scotts one day looking at gravestones, we stopped in at the township office and someone said, ‘you have to talk to Phyllis.’”

Simmons loved the idea to honor the veterans and was asked by the township board to head up the project.

View full sizeThis plaque will be placed on a boulder in the Scotts Community Center and will serve as a monument to the men of the Scotts Civil War Post.Alex Mitchell | MLive.com

“I knew I had lost the (supervisor) primary election and that I wouldn’t be serving another term, so I volunteered to head up the project,” Simmons said.

A few months later, Bob Ramsdell and his wife, Jo, joined the group to help research the history of the original 43 charter members of the post.

“We started a genealogy group that meets at Scotts Café,” said Bob Ramsdell. “In one of our meetings, Phyllis came in and she presented this project that she’d been working with, so our group got involved with her project and we’ve all become part of it.”

After Jolene White joined the group, the research team was complete.

“Then we had to think, how are we going to fund this?” said Simmons. “So, with the help of everybody I started writing letters and making calls."

Simmons said everyone in the group donated a considerable amount of time and money to the project, especially Culp.

“Mike was very, very helpful with a generous donation, from the Sons. Although, I have a feeling it was from his checkbook,” she laughed.

A sixth member of the group, Barbara O’Connor, who wasn’t involved in the research for the book, successfully undertook the task of getting permission to place the honorary plaque on a boulder in the Scotts Community Center.

Originally the group had intended to pass out a small leaflet for the ceremony that would outline some of the history of the post.

But, when White and Jo Ramsdell began researching the 43 men and passed the information along to Simmons, the three realized they had to expand the leaflet to something larger.

“We thought maybe we would add a few more pages,” Simmons said. “Now, it’s an 8x11 in. 64-page book!”

White estimates the group has “100s” of hours invested into the research and writing.

“There are so many amazing, wonderful stories,” White said. “But of course, you also come across a lot of tragedy.”

The team found photos of the soldiers or their gravestones for all but two of the 43 original members of the Walter Orr Scotts Post. The post was named after Orr, who had gone missing after lying wounded on a battlefield for days, according to Culp.

Once Simmons finished writing the histories of these men, and Bob Ramsdell scanned and uploaded the photos, their book was finally complete.

The boulder the plaque will be placed on was donated by Merle Cobille’s excavating

View full sizeThis 64-page book, completed by the members of this project, outlines the history of the 43 charter members of the Scotts Civil War Post. It will be available for purchase at Saturday's ceremony for $5.Alex Mitchell | MLive.com

business and it was cut by Tim Scheiderboer. Both men donated their time.

The book was printed by a local couple at cost, and will be sold for $5 at the ceremony. After the ceremony, the group hopes to store extra copies at local libraries to pass the history of these men down to future generations.

“You see these signs: ‘American United and Free,’” said Culp. “Well it’s united and free because of men like these. Doing something to recognize their contribution, their importance and what they’ve given to us is very important.”

The other Kalamazoo County GAR post monuments reside in Riverside, Fulton, Schoolcraft and Vicksburg, according to Culp. He encourages everyone to visit them.